List of problems at DCS

May 13, 2013

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has faced scrutiny over mounting problems during the past year:

• Child advocates and the sheriff in Dickson County said DCS wasn’t properly intervening in situations in which children were experiencing severe abuse.

• A child abuse hotline was leaving calls unanswered. After The Tennessean chronicled the missed calls, the call center director was replaced.

• DCS has seen a spike in violence and police activity at its juvenile detention centers. The agency pledged to investigate.

• A report by a panel of experts on the Second Look Commission found investigations into severe child abuse were left incomplete and failed to address the complicated needs of families.

• The agency’s $27 million computer system failed to make proper payments to foster parents and private agencies. The agency said in October that it was spending nearly $4 million to fix the computer system and considering legal action against the installation contractor.

• Ongoing data problems related to the computer system left DCS scrambling to provide accurate information on children in its care to the public and as part of a federal court order requiring the agency to take better care of foster children.

• The agency saw a high level of turnover among top-level executives — typically without preparing transition plans for their replacements — with more than 70 executive service officials fired since January 2011.

• In September, the agency released data showing that 31 children had died in the first six months of 2012 after coming into contact with DCS. Lawmaker Sherry Jones had sought the information for months. In releasing the information, The agency conceded it had been violating a law requiring DCS to report such deaths on a regular basis to lawmakers.

• In December, The Tennessean and a coalition of a dozen media groups from around the state filed suit against DCS, seeking access to the records of more than 200 children who died or nearly died under the agency’s watch since 2009. In January, Davidson County Chancellor Carol McCoy ordered DCS to turn over records.

• In January, Gov. Bill Haslam released a statement that DCS had undercounted child deaths. Calling the repeated miscounts of child fatalities “not acceptable,” Haslam appointed longtime aide and former Knoxville banker Larry Martin to serve as an adviser to the agency.

• On Feb. 5, Haslam announced the resignation of DCS Commissioner Kate O’Day. Haslam appointed Jim Henry, commissioner of the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, to serve as interim commissioner. Henry immediately appeared before lawmakers who had convened a hearings to investigate DCS and asked for their help as he embarked on a process to reform the agency.

• By March, Henry had ordered a thorough assessment of child deaths and ordered his staff to phone his cellphone within one hour of any child fatality. The agency released new numbers saying 105 children had died in 2012 and 91 in 2011.